


What's My Name?

by blcwriter



Category: Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017)
Genre: Bubble Lives, Character Death Fix, Female Characters, Fix-It, Gen, Spoilers, Stop Fridging Female Characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2017-07-23
Packaged: 2018-12-06 00:05:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11588931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blcwriter/pseuds/blcwriter
Summary: (Spoilers for the movie.)She woke up, and that was a surprise.





	What's My Name?

She woke up, and that was a surprise. 

For a while, she just stared at the ceiling, which was skittering with snarlips and some kind of bioluminescent moss she couldn’t say was sentient or not, though it seemed to brighten the longer she looked in its direction. Maybe. Alpha was big, and not all new species identified themselves in the dbase. 

Slowly, she groped around until the trash stopped moving under her hands, and then rolled to one side. Eventually, she managed to gather upright, and all but one of her tackles was pretty much steady. That one felt—not numb but probably what the humans called bruised. When she examined herself a bit more, she saw that the puncture she’d felt was just a bit to the left of her ganglion cluster—she’d been sure she was pierced but it looked like she’d gotten lucky and had just needed to regenerate deeply.

Without any better ideas, she took off in the direction she’d been waving Valerian and Laureline toward before she’d regenned, figuring at least that way she’d be able figure out what happened and how long she’d been out. Jolly was dead, which solved her biggest immediate problem until she needed someplace to eat and regen. Plus, Valerian had promised she’d get an ID—since he was the first human she’d met in a while who didn’t ask her to hold some shape besides her natural one, she might be able to trust him. And if not, she could always pretend to be him until she got somewhere safe.

oOoOoOoOoOo

The area the humans called the red zone was full of sentients, with the exception of some K-Trons that were lights-out and blocking one of the exits. 

“Miss,” one of the soldiers wearing the station uniform called, as she stood and looked at the big blown-out bay. “It’s dangerous down here, you should head back above.” 

Bubble had taken on the appearance of the woman who came to clean up the café at the end of the night, since she’d always been nondescript and invisible to Jolly no matter how many times Bubble saw her, which maybe made her a different kind of glampod. 

Still. She couldn’t keep running forever, and even if it took a while to straighten things out, Jolly was dead and things around Alpha were clearly changing. There were almost a dozen dead K-Trons, and that was also a good thing. 

“Agent Valerian owes me something for getting him in and out of Boulan Bathor,” she managed to say. “He made me a promise, if I helped him retrieve Agent Laureline.”

The soldier looked her over, and Bubble took a moment to concentrate on making her costume look even more dusty and nondescript. “Boulan Bathor, huh?” The soldier clearly didn’t believe her.

“The Emperor’s dead now, and at least two dozen warriors. You could probably send in a detachment and rescue some sentients in their food pens before anyone notices much. ” 

The soldier blanched, swallowed, and nodded before checking something on zhir arm comm. 

Bubble kept the urge to shift and shove away with her tackles under control even though she was so nervous she could shake right out of this skin. Talking face to face with a soldier! Calling in a debt from a feddie! If her pod could see her now—not that they ever would, but she bet they’d be proud.

“Right. Well,” the soldier seemed to decide, after scrolling through some data Bubble couldn’t decipher. “Agent Valerian and Agent Laureline are off-Alpha, but General Okto-Bar will have someone who can help you.” Zhe waved a hand at some young Gluar, who slid over and glupped hello. 

“Take this…” the soldier said, then looked back at her, “um, how are you called?”

“I go by Bubble,” she said, then added, because if she was going to get an ID like Valerian promised, then that mean she got to choose—“but I prefer Rih.”

“Ree?” the Gluar tried. “Gurble,” it offered, sliding its boscis in a circle over its face.

“Hello, Gurble,” she offered. “It’s nice to meet you.” 

The Gluar crinkled its boscis in the gesture of friendship, then waved toward the stream of soldiers and specialists passing in and out of the ramp that led upstation, sliding off toward wherever they were going next. 

It took Bubble—no—she was Rih now-- a moment to follow. Maybe the feddies wouldn’t believe her and maybe they’d throw her in jail. Maybe they’d think she was a hero for helping the agents save Alpha. Maybe having an ID wouldn’t matter and she’d still have to find someone who wasn’t much better than Jolly to get her some gigs. Or maybe she could figure out what it meant to be one of the last of a podfull, and then go from there. 

Firming her tackles, she headed upstation.


End file.
